The Asymmetrical DS X E-Tense Is an Optical Illusion in Concept-Car Form

At Citroën, the DS name has always been associated with wackiness, or at least forward thinking. So it’s fitting that the DS brand’s newest concept car, the DS X E-Tense, is an off-the-rails design study envisioning what cars might look like in 2035. With a bizarre asymmetrical layout and plenty of space-age visual cues, the X E-Tense is a perplexing-looking thing that seems more like an optical illusion than an actual car, but we’re intrigued nonetheless.

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The basics of the E-Tense are somewhat familiar: it’s a sports car that rides on a carbon-fiber monocoque and is powered by two electric motors mounted in the front wheels. These motors are said to make 536 horsepower in standard roadgoing mode and an insane 1341 horsepower in track, or “circuit,” mode.

Then things start to get weird. The driver, on the left side of the car, sits in a single open-air seat with a small windshield. The passenger, on the right side of the car, sits farther back under a bubble-top roof, and an additional seat can be added in front of that seat for three-passenger capability. The glass floor is see-through, and the air inside the cabin is filtered and scented to relax the passengers while they’re driven either by the driver or by the car in fully autonomous mode. There are no touchscreens; instead, a personal-assistant hologram takes care of the car’s functions for you.

Oh, and it’s also crashproof. DS said the body is constructed in such a way that it can return to its original shape after a collision, thanks to some unspecified “new technology” that we’re suddenly very curious to hear more about. DS said the E-Tense will be making its movie premiere in the near future, so look for it on the silver screen sometime soon—and on the showroom floor sometime not so soon.